Pray for the Poor Liberal Elitists if Romney/Ryan Win

Tragedy can befall people in strange ways and when they least expect it.  Imagine the poor mortician when he finds out that there is no need to embalm Nancy Pelosi, when the time comes?

    The Comadre of El Gringo Viejo (she is, like my wife, the grandmother of our granddaughters) could not resist this hilarious pass-along.   We have sufficiently recovered from rib- cracking belly-laughing to pass it forward to the Realm of the OROGs.

 

 

 

Let's hope a flight to Canada is NOT NECESSARY!

From the MANITOBA HERALD, Canada (a very underground paper):

The flood of American liberals sneaking across the border into Canada has intensified in the past week, sparking calls for increased patrols to stop the illegal immigration. The possibility of a Romney/Ryan election is prompting the exodus among left-leaning citizens who fear they'll soon be required to hunt, pray, and agree with Bill O'Reilly. Canadian border farmers say it's not uncommon to see dozens of sociology professors, animal rights activists and Unitarians crossing their fields at night.

"I went out to milk the cows the other day, and there was a Hollywood producer huddled in the barn," said Manitoba farmer Red Greenfield, whose acreage borders North Dakota . The producer was cold, exhausted and hungry. "He asked me if I could spare a latte and some free range chicken. When I said I didn't have any, he left. Didn't even get a chance to show him my screenplay, eh?"

In an effort to stop the illegal aliens, Greenfield erected higher fences, but the liberals scaled them. So he tried installing speakers that blare Rush Limbaugh across the fields. "Not real effective," he said. "The liberals still got through, and Rush annoyed the cows so much they wouldn't give milk."

 

Officials are particularly concerned about smugglers who meet liberals near the Canadian border, pack them into Volvo station wagons, drive them across the border and leave them to fend for themselves. "A lot of these people are not prepared for rugged conditions," an Ontario border patrolman said. "I found one carload without a drop of drinking water. "They did have a nice little Napa Valley Cabernet, though."

When liberals are caught, they're sent back across the border, often wailing loudly that they fear retribution from conservatives. Rumors have been circulating about the Romney administration establishing re-education camps in which liberals will be forced to shoot wolves from airplanes, deny evolution, and act out drills preparing them for the Rapture.

In recent days, liberals have turned to sometimes ingenious ways of crossing the border. Some have taken to posing as senior citizens on bus trips to buy cheap Canadian prescription drugs. After catching a half-dozen young vegans disguised in powdered wigs, Canadian immigration authorities began stopping buses and quizzing the supposed senior citizen passengers on Perry Como and Rosemary Clooney hits to prove they were alive in the '50s. "If they can't identify the accordion player on The Lawrence Welk Show, we get suspicious about their age," an official said.

Canadian citizens have complained that the illegal immigrants are creating an organic-broccoli shortage and renting all the good Susan Sarandon movies. "I feel sorry for American liberals, but the Canadian economy just can't support them," an Ottawa resident said. "How many art history and English majors does one country need?"

 

 

Would we wish those people on any of our neighbours?   On any of our friends?  On any of our enemies, actually.   Can you imagine some poor Taliban guy waking up and finding Harry Reid in his hovel or cave?   Or poor Hugo Chavez being served his palace breakfast by that strange looking new table attendant, David Axelrod or Janet Napolitano as the upstairs maid?   It might be a brave new world quite soon.

 

We'll sign off for a bit.   FYI, our Susan Sarandon MacAfee filter seems to have worked. No damage to the hard drive.

El Gringo Viejo 



Yes. El Gringo Viejo Will Go on the Record...

We shan't shrink from the obligation of going out on a limb.   The OROGs have the right to know that El Gringo Viejo is not a direct decendant from Merlin.  And, El Gringo Viejo has done more than his fair share of patting himself on the back about what a great social and demographic analyst he was and is.


 

I NEVER FORGET  -   TO HELL

WITH REVENGE, I WANT MY

GRANDCHILDREN FREE

 FROM DEBT!

 

NOW!

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

     Therefore, he shall give all OROGs his best impression, after going into the internals of 10 major polls, and relying on guidance from the Suffolk, Gallup,  and Rasmussen since we are more familiar with.  and trusting of their methodology.   Even when there is divergence concerning methodology, as we frequently have with Gallup, we can undertand and reassemble their tendency to oversample the Democrat probable turnout.


     We are estimating that Romney will carry the Republic of  Texas with 59% of the vote.

     In terms of the vote as it occurs in all 57 States and the District of Columbia we see this result:

                                                              Romney/Ryan          -           55%

                                                              Obama/Biden           -           45%

Far from being concerned about being out of step with the conventional wisdom, we think these figures might be a slight bit low on the side of support for the Romney / Ryan ticket.

We see the GOP pair carrying Ohio and Pennsylvania, albeit narrowly.   The entirety of the Confederate States will go to Romney / Ryan as well as the border States of Kentucky, Missouri, Kansas, West Virginia, but not Maryland.

There is a remote chance that New Jersey will fall into the Elephants' Corral.  There is a good chance that New Hampshire will go for Romney / Ryan.

Electoral College vote:    Romney / Ryan    -     +/  -       320

                                           Obama  /  Biden   -     +/  -       230


We must hope for the restoration of the Senate to the hands of the Republicans and that said Republicans can resist the temptation to be "reasonable and bi-partisan".   Secret note to moderate Republicans.....Choose between submerging in the Titanic slowly or steering around the iceberg.   There can be no moderation when dealing with Juries that will be   composed of Robespierre's partisans.



If we are right or wrong, we shall see.  This is how I genuinely see the outcome.   During the McCain/ Palin wake, we had it exactly the opposite.    Obama 55 and McCain 45.
  We judged the outcome of the 2010 elections in error by coming in 2 Congressional seats low for the Republicans and 1 Senate seat low for the Republicans.
     We also predicted that Ted Cruz would destroy his Country Club -  Moderate Republican in the primary contest for United States Senate, who outspent Cruz by 10 to 1.  Cruz is the one of the very, very few people to have ever won a Republic of Texas - wide election on his first try.

Pray for the Republic.
El Gringo Viejo

El Zorro Weighs in: Salient Experience from Hurricane Alicia, Texas - 1983

     We have told the OROGs that El Zorro is terribly technically competent.  It is a source of humiliation to me personally that I lacked both the native intelligence and the personal self-discipline to learn what he has learnt from arduous study and careful practise.  He has been a member of the Communication Workers of America labour union, and he was one of, if not the youngest construction crew foreman in the entire Southwestern Bell operation.  His area of service he describes in the transmission included below is roughly the size of Connecticut and Rhode Island combined.  At that time it was a combination of rapidly growing metropolitan areas and extensive stretches of ranches, some huge, including portions of the fabled King Ranch and Kenedy Ranch, and the various Guerra ranching interests, among others.

     In this communique, El Zorro points out certain facts about a particularly tricky and powerful, destructive hurricane, attended by clustered outbreaks of scores of tornadoes, that resulted in much more damage than had been anticipated of the storm as little as two days before.  We include this further summary:    

 

 

 

 

Category 3 hurricane (SSHS)
Hurricane Alicia before landfall.
Formed	August 15, 1983 (1983-08-15)
Dissipated	August 20, 1983 (1983-08-21)
Highest winds	1-minute sustained: 115 mph (185 km/h)
Lowest pressure	962 mbar (hPa); 28.41 inHg
Fatalities	21 direct
Damage	$2.6 billion (1983 USD)
Areas affected	Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska
Part of the 1983 Atlantic hurricane season

Hurricane Alicia was the costliest tropical cyclone in the Atlantic since Hurricane Agnes in 1972. Alicia was the third depression, the first tropical storm, and the only major hurricane of the 1983 Atlantic hurricane season. It struck Galveston and Houston, Texas directly, causing $2.6 billion (1983 USD; $6.07 billion 2012 USD) in damage and killing 21 people; this made it the worst Texas hurricane since Hurricane Carla in 1961.^[1] In addition, Alicia was the first billion-dollar tropical cyclone in Texas history.^[2]

Hurricane Alicia was the first hurricane to hit the United States mainland since Hurricane Allen in August 1980. The time between the two storms totaled three years and eight days (1,103 days).^[3] Hurricane Alicia became the last major hurricane (Category 3 or higher) to strike Texas until the stronger Hurricane Bret in 1999 made landfall. Alicia was the first storm for which the National Hurricane Center issued landfall probabilities.^[4]

 

      We include this summary about the Hurricane Alicia, due the fact that El Zorro typically tries to understate that he and his crew actually had to go into an area that was considered (and actually was) a catastrophic disaster at the time.   Later facts bore that out.  Service in that area was profoundly dangerous due to animals, undisciplined electricity, broken gas lines,  snakes, looters (rare), and falling debris of every imagineable kind.   Many died, and many hundreds were seriously injured.   To serve in the conditions as they presented was not for the weak-knee'd.

     Although he and I are clones of a sort, the OROG will note that he feels free to contradict, especially with evidence at hand, my positions and thoughts about matters.  In the case of Alicia, a particularly sneaky and devastating Hurricane, my position must, at the least be held aside, due to the fact that El Zorro...once again...really was on the edge of and deep inside of the Belly of the Beast.   

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

Senor Gringo,

     This is to say I had personal experience with a fairly devastating hurricane event you will remember. Hurricane Alicia hit the Texas Coast in the summer of 1983. Yours truly was, at that time, a construction crew foreman for SWBT/ATT located at McAllen. My area of responsibility was from South Texas from Brownsville to Laredo and easterly to Falfurias .

      On August 15, 1983 as the hurricane was approaching we (Telco managers and strategists) met at a makeshift war room at 1010 North Tenth St.   My crew of 8 and I had volunteered to deploy to the Houston area as we were pretty sure that is where the hurricane would strike. It was on the 18^th that the hurricane made landfall just southwest of Galveston as a level 3 hurricane. On the 18^th, I remember we had substantial rain and wind at McAllen; however, the storm did not require emergency services so we saddled up and headed for Edna, TX where we would be based to assist restoral. It was a strategic decision in that the larger metro areas would probably be booked, blocked off,  or otherwise inaccessible due to the potential damage. We took our construction vehicles and extra supplies of food and water in case there was a need in the area when we arrived. As it turns out there was significant damage in terms of downed telephone and power lines, trees, building debris, etc. Our first priority was to restore communications, which was generally what we did, but we were also able to assist the local population with our equipment and manpower.

We saw our Central Power and Light (the main private ower company in those days, then part of Central and Southwest Power) counterparts from the Valley and their equipment on site as well. There were other Utility companies we recognized from out of the area too. In our time there we did observe Red Cross personnel but nothing from FEMA. The following is some statistical data I found on Wikipedia:

 

“The Red Cross provided food and shelter to 63,000 people in the hurricane's wake, costing about $166 million (1983 USD; $387 million 2012 USD). FEMA gave out $32 million (1983 USD; $74.7 million 2012 USD) to Alicia's victims and local governments; $23 million (1983 USD; $53.7 million 2012 USD) of that was for picking up debris spread after the storm. More than 16,000 people sought help from FEMA's disaster service centers. The Small Business Administration, aided with 56 volunteers, interviewed over 16,000 victims, and it was predicted that about 7,000 loan applications would be submitted. The Federal Insurance Agency had closed over 1,318 flood insurance cases from Alicia's aftermath, however only 782 received final payment.^”


 

    My only point is that the private sector responds without federal “assistance” and at our own expense. Yes, we are responsible for our own infrastructure; however, we cooperated with the local community to help mitigate the damage. The CWA (Communication Workers of America) notwithstanding, we all worked together. The union was kind of snippy about expenses for my non-management crew but otherwise there was no problem with the union.

This is just for your interest to be used or not, at your discretion.

Z

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

    It is noted also that this was during the Reagan Administration.   The entire FEMA thing is a fluffy teddy-bear, government sop to the touchy-feely, kinder and gentler, mid-night basketball crowd who think..."The government should do something for .......(enter name of victim group)",   Everything the government does for anybody always becomes a decrepit disaster to be blamed upon the Republicans and conservatives because they would not allow people who really, really cared to fund the ridiculous,dsyfunctional program or Secretariat enough to make a real difference.   There are still hundred of mobile homes rotting in various  places in Texas, grouped up after various disasters, frequently never deployed , sometimes just hooked-up and moved to places where they were found after several years of occupation and  eventual abandonment.   It never ends.   But we do remember Alicia...the surprise killer...and the incredible amount, especially of minor to moderate damage that extended so far out from the centre of the "small storm", and the incredible "Kristallnacht" effect of the flying roof gravel, so popular in those days, and the damage said gravel caused in downtown Houston and other towns around.   There were many places with slight damage that had thousands of new cars completely stripped of windows and showrooms that had been converted to open-air facilities.   It was surreal.

 

     We depart now, and await our next visit from El Zorro.   Salience and depth of knowledge is a comforting thing for the mind and soul.

El Gringo Veijo 

We Want Your Child...Now

 

     Statists and marxists marched for the right to have you pay for the indoctrination of your child yesterday in the much vaunted MILLION MUPPET MARCH.....the name of said march changed later to "million puppet march" due to unauthorised copyright infringement....and even later had to be changed to the "Several Dozen Slugs and Dregs Who Are Marxists Who Make Course and Profane Signs with 'Inspired' Double-Entendre Messages That Are Really Cute to Explain to Four and Five Year-old Children Pointless Stroll....NOW!".
 

Several million guides to the proper raising
and care and guidance of children poured
out to person the barricades against the fascist
 counter-revolutionary forces who oppose
 women, children, LGBTRZOA, and
 political prisoners....and torture. and
 Big Bird...and everything.

 

    Estimates of the crowd size ranged from the organisers' count of several hundred million to the actually count of 425, which was quite impressive, considering that they only had one month to organise the event.

 

     Perhaps it is time that Big Bird move out of the house and get a job.   Surely Planned Parenthood and Service Employees International Union can pick up the tab by providing advertising patronage.

El Gringo Viejo



This Benghazi Thing

    As the days go by, and with each paragraph of reliable or reasonable or probable information crawls into the light of Truth, it appears that this Benghazi thing was nothing good from the start.   It seems as if there were many uncles, but no fathers.  It also seems as if it proves rather definitively that Barak Hussein Obama has had a policy from the beginning of his regime to back the Muslim Brotherhood's overall objectives in Arabia as well as within the Caliphasia.

     By Caliphasia, El Gringo Veijo means that vague but real understanding on the part of radical Muslim extemists who agree upon the general objective of establishing Shiria Law throughout the world, and the enforcement of that law upon each living soul on the face of the earth.  There are many faces to this movement.  Some are in concert with others, others are in concert with none.   We are familiar with the specifically dedicated movement that intend to destroy Judaism, all Jews, and especially the spectre of  Jewry existing or being practiced within "Palestine".    These movements and organisations are generally lumped into the Hezbollah and the Jamas groups...who themselves do not see beheading to beheading on many issues.   Christianity and the other major religions and spiritual philosophies are lumped under the file marked ''Judaism" by almost all these bloodthirsty psychopaths.

    

     Whether is it politically correct or not, it must be observed that among the very first things that Barak Hussein Obama did after his election was to go to Cairo and speak sincerely about the errors of America's way.   He pronounced that there had arrived a new spirit and a new reality to finally establish fair and equal relations between the Muslim world and the American Union.  From the time he took what he considered to be the sceptre of authority, the sly accommodation of certain Islamist groups and missions was tolerated and other Islamists  who were more involved in reclaiming tribal territory and returning that tribal territory to the 9th Century after Christ were to be harassed and/or destroyed.



Be sure to tell Vlad that after the election I'll be able
 to shake all the Cracker trash and their Toms, and we
 can get down to some serious social progress
 and social democracy for the people being
 oppressed by American Imperialism.

     The reduction in force in Afghanistan, and the purposeful avoidance of gaining an agreement in place to allow a significant American military presence in Iraq for a period extending past our formal declaration of the end of bellicose action showed Obama's and his hidden handlers' true hand.   The Machiavellian dumping of old Mubarek, with all the attendent politically correct shibboleths  about his being a horrible dictator resulted in the predictable outcome....something worse than the disease was caused by the medicine.   Dump the Shah, Batista, Samoza, and Mubarek and we wind up with the Ayatollahs, Fidel and Raul, the Ortega Brothers, and Muslim Brotherhood.  Obama's foreign policy and world view is controlled by the same people who provided Elian his jet-plane ride back to the Workers' Paradise in Cuba.  Varlerie Jerrod and Elizabeth Warren are not personalities who just happenned to spill out of the cauldron during the openning scenes of MacBeth.   Van Jones is not an accidental fixture found in the White House, he was simply a little too loud-mouthed, stupid, and "out-there" for this particular stage of the destruction process.  They are all dedicated marxists whose number one objective is to destroy both the Old Zion (Jewry, Judaism, and the Zionist Occupation of Palestine) and the New Zion (The United States of America and the United Kingdom).   Although the Obamistas are atheists, they have no problem in making league with deranged Muslims who are anxious to make it up to the place where there must be millions upon millions of virgins waiting.   So...it is a perfect marriage made in Hell....Annenberg Foundation, scores of old, noble-sounding charitable foundations (like Ford, Rockefeller, Carnegie) long since infiltrated by progressives and perverts to forward the mission of "social democracy", "tolerance", "diversity", and above all else, "progressivism'' and "reproductive rights".

The ever impressive Dome of the Rock, found not in
but in Al Quds, the Arabic name for Jersusalem,
and the name used by Obama's National Security
Advisor, and the Muslim Brotherhood, etc.

     While this is going on, we have followed a peculiar policy in Afghanistan.   We send in drones to kill Taliban, based upon information that is derived from sources that are totally unreliable.   At times, it seems, tribal and clan jealousies and arguments are distilled into information that is given to the Gringos who are told that Taliban leader X is in hovel number 193 on your contour map.   He will be having a meeting with his criminal gang there at 19:00 hours on Thursday.   So the process is, "Whoops, there goes another drone attack victory".

     The problem with these victories is that we are left without prisoners, one of the main sources of information, for instance, and without the kind of intel that might be able to predict which Mohammed is a good Mohammed, and which one sold his soul to Satan for a chance at some of the waiting millions and millions of virgins.   Ergo, scores of Gringo of good will, trying to train up forces that might conceivably bring civilised life to that literally God-forsaken place....are essentially murdered by treachery of the very people we are training.   Better 70 or 80 virgins in the hand than a chance at having a country that is something at least slightly better than a septic tanque from the Dark Ages.

      The only reason for following this policy of droning probable Taliban targets is to engender everlasting  resistance and hatred for all outside, infidel and/or heretical crusader devils.   It is designed to bring more hatred down on the Americans by the Muslims.   It is designed that way by the White House and the fool of a National Security Advisor for Obama who refers to the Dome of the Rock as the Holiest Shrine in Palestine, and to Jerusalem as Al Quds.

TO THE POINT:

     It is tiresome to point out the obvious repeatedly.    Obama  and his cohorts are marxists, and they are probably atheists, and they are certainly anti-American agents, having long prepared for this time of final assault against the Shining City on the Hill.   This is not something to debate.  It is certain fact, the letters glow upon the wall.

     What comes to the fore then is the probability that the entire Benghazi thing is very much something that reeks of treason and high crimes of an unimaginable magnitude.   Once again, like so much of the Clinton Administration....there were crimes committed so ghastly that they could not possibly be digested by the American body politic's thought processes.  We are all well aware of the colossal whopperoos of Hillary Rodham, and the willingness of William Jefferson Blythe to drag the nation through the mud, all the while blaming others for his crimes and errors.   Blythe's people said on the one hand his little pecadillos were personal matters and nothing but little errors in judgement and no big thing, and on the other hand they were important enough that he had to lie, lie, twist and turn, and "is" is "is" except when "is" is "whumplefluggle" for months, and months, and months, and months and then one day say, "Well, I guess you all done got me...yuk, yuk." 
     It's the way these people think.  It is the way of all narcissists, all totalitarians, all people who see the world as a factory of servants and slavish admirers.   Lamentably there are plenty of dullards, communists, and pro-abortion people who will gladly volunteer to be among the 666 Corps for Clintobama.

 

     This big picture crime against America hinges on one particular and peculiar point.   In my considerable, albeit shallow research, it struck me odd...it did not digest well in the little grey cells, that the consulate in Benghazi never really was used as a place to seek a replacement for a lost or stolen passport or to seek legal advise from a person experience in the area and working for Americans in need of orientaton about the locale.   It did not ever display an America Flag or the standard bronze medallion plaque of identification on thre outside wall, or much of anything to indicate that it was something officially American.

     It seems apparent that the American Ambassador to Libya was in Benghazi for the purpose of meeting with a high-level Turkish official.   That official was there to arrange the reception of armaments, some heavy , and pertinent ammunition that was to be loaded onto Turkish freighters to then be transferred into the battle against Assad in Syria.  It is thought, and it is being spoken about openly in Arabic circles, that the arms being transferred have been turned over to the Libyan Government, and then in turn, given to the Americans to channel to the Turks who have the best capacity to deliver said items to the "Syrian resistance".

     Anzar al Sharia....a group that has been a wild card, trying to control shipping in the Benghazi port facilities and trying, simultaneously to gather up the shoulder fired missiles, and other moderately heavy infantry arms...had taken offense to the Americans blotting up stores of weaponry to use to try to curry favour with the "Syrian Freedom Fighters".    Anzar al Sharia is a militia affiliated with the now non-existent Al Qaeda (a slight bit of morbid humour, please forgive).   While Anzar al Sharia is mainly affiliated with Anzar al Sharia, it is broadly in agreement with the overall objectives of the Muslim Brotherhood and Al Qaeda....which is also a difficult marriage to make due to certain contradictions in dogma....but what the heck...This is Arabia, this is fundamentalist Islam and there are plenty of virgins to go around.   The collusion between the Shia Iranians and the Sunni Al Qaeda is something that a person must shrug off for the moment and say, "Well, that will be something that will blow up down the road, sooner or later".

     But the issue in Benghazi, accordng to Anzar al Sharia, is "Who will control the leftover arms of Qadaffi?   Who will make the money off the sales of those arms and ammunitions?  How much will be sent to Syria and how much do we sell to FARC in Colombia and now much to the Mexican Cartels and how much to criminal gangs in the United States and Europe?   You know, we have to make a little on the side, Allah and Mohammed will not mind",



This could have been the brother of
the guy Omar Shariff shot
 in the movie,
Lawrence of Arabia

     Remember the pedant, boring scenes in Lawrence of Arabia, wherein there were clumsy attempts to show some reason or logic behind the treachery that Arabs practice against each other.   The openning scene that shows Omar Shariff shooting a Bedouin who was riding up to use a well that was prohibited to his clan.   Yet Omar Shariff was obliged by Allah and instructed by Mohammed to extend every generousity and every courtesy to Peter O'toole, a nominal Anglican Christian and, of course,  English...precisely because he was foreign.

     The duplicity, the honour, the generousity, the selfishness, the brilliance, the stupidity, etc.etc. etc. that one encounters among people so brutal and so involved with a religion descended from Abraham borders upon the inconceivable.

 

      So, if this mush of corn mash can be heated up and watered down with good water from the cold spring and allowed to distill through the copper tubing and collect and rest for a bit...El Gringo Viejo does not know if it will turn into some kind of firewater, or if we can age it up and mellow it down before the revenuers find it and we can have a good whiskey.   Anything is possible.   At the very best for Barack Hussein Obama there is a case for saying that he is in collusion with the Muslim Brotherhood and very much in favour of solving the Jewish Problem by either forcing them out of Al Qud or worse, and turning over Judea and Israel to the mafia that is Jamas and Hezbollah and the Muslim Brotherhood and letting them have their way with the Hebrews.
     The extension of the Caliphate, removing the old sultans, sheiks, and kings and placing mafia-style "business thugs" in their place.   And Barak Hussein Obama has manuevered the American ship of State into alignment with the aims of the Muslim Brotherhood, one of the most morally and financially corrupt organisations in the world, along the with the Mexican and other Latin American Cartels, and the Eastern European Mafias, and of course the Sicilian-Trans Mediterranean Mafias.
     Why?   Why would the American Sons of Alinsky be messing around in this crowd?   Because their contempt for America is the same as the above groups.   And their desire to lessen American influence over the affairs of the undevelopable world is identical.   Obama has been taped making league with Putin's lackey Mudcatyev for all the world to hear.  "Just have to get past this re-election, and then I will be free to make the necessary agreements."  That pre-concessionary statement deals with selling out the Poles and much of Eastern Europe in terms of missile defence preparedness.   Obama is intent upon imposing on the previously enslaved Warsaw Pact nations a return to a form of Russian Imperial Control.    All the bad of the Romonoffs with none of the good.
     Further, the idea of trying to cover up what has been revealed so far, with a silly story about a 12 minute video about Islam can not even be weighed by a truck scale it is such a huge bucket of bilge.   It is insulting, it crosses the  borders of the criminal, and it does nothing save to try to maintain the false image that "Al Qaeda is gone...or diminished...or decimated...or whatever".  It has been know for the last three years that Al Qaeda is more ubiquitous, more inserted, more dispersed, and more inclined to the offensive than even in 2001.

     We leave you with the mash boiling, and we'll see if it turns into something worth putting into a bottle and putting a label on.  My studies will continue.   We shall rest up for Tuesday's marathon.  We are noting that Obama has not begun advertising in Texas because of his improving polling numbers (Joking).....perhaps it is because his numbers in Texas are still gradually falling.  It is possible that he might not even pick up 36% in Texas....we shall see.

Thanks for you time and for sticking with me through these rabbit trails I call thoughts.
El Gringo Viejo.

Story told by an Old Man About Another Old Man's Story

      There was a noble old man, by the name of Agustin Salinas, who was my father's mayordomo in charge of the day to day issues of our citrus grove care business and general  farming activity back in the days when north of McAllen meant   "way out in the country".  Don Agustin would at times refer to certain roads in Mexico as "caminos burros". We thought he meant that they were crummy roads or that they had been used by arrierros in their deliveries or whatever. Later, he and my father explained that during the building of the new modern paved roads (starting in the 1930s), there were always big city engineers who would come out and plan and design and really work up a good attack at getting over this or that mountain range.

      Then the rustics would show up to request work on the highway, and ask about the overall plan and schedule. The smart Mexico City engineers would say, " In a couple of weeks we'll have all our plans drawn and then about a week after that we need to start excavating."

 An arrierro with his remuda de burros.   El Gringo Viejo
has seen this scene countless times in the mountainuos
parts of rural Mexico.   While the artist might be a slight
bit generous with the quality of the animals and the  fine
hat and attire....we add quickly...Not much.   The remudas
were frequently fine, and the men were, although rustic
quite highly regarded, usually preenish with well trimmed
mustachios, and very fine hats during market days.

      Then the rustics would say, "But why sen~or, do you plan with the papers? The Burros, they know the route that you want."

       After much laughing and hooting and howling, the engineers would say, "How is that possible? You are all just a bunch of dumb, rural, Mexican Indians. You know nothing about engineering such a difficult transit, and yet you confide in Burros. jajaaajjaaa jajaaajjaaaa"

      The the Indians said,"Sen~ores, do you want this road to go from here to Mitlalchitepec?"

     "Yes, of course, that is the only pass that can be used to build the paved highway through to San Lorenzo." responded the engineers.

     "But Sen~ores, if you want to have a highway for trucks to San Lorenzo, you have to use the Camino del Burro. Please take your trucks and load the Burros and us upon them, and take the Burros and us to San Benavides. Then you can follow us back to here and then you will know the route you must take to Mitlalchitepec."

     The Indians seemed sincere, and the distance wasn't that far, so they loaded up the eight or nine mares and two jacks and six Zapotec Indians and drove them about 16 miles to San Lorenzo on the old unserviceable road.    The Mexico City professionals and their Gringo sub-contractor smiled knowingly and thought they were being very accommodating to the rustics by entertaining their foolishness as though their idea had any merit.

      After an hour and a half they arrived and unloaded their living cargo. The Zapotec rustics set about organising the return, calling loudly and sharply,"Arre! Arre! Maria, Arre! Consuelo....Arre tu!! Napoleon. Arre!...and off they went. "Hasta la casa, sonsas! hasta la casa!!! Arre!  (getty-up! Maria!!  Getty-up Consuelo...getty-up!! Get thee up!!  Napoleon, getty-up!! "Until the home, silly girls!! Until the home!! getty-up!)

     The burros began to canter into the chapparral, weaving here and there, but cantering fairly slowly all the while, just fast enough to where the men had to walk a bit briskly to keep up. The engineers followed, having sent the truck back around.    They had been going for about an hour when the engineers said, "When does this end?  Are we going to camp out here overnight?"

      The Indians laughed, and pointed to the summit just ahead, about 300 yards away. "We have arrived. Just over the 'ceja' (crest).    And then we are there."

     "You Indians are either lost or lying, because we have only been walking for an hour, and we have only covered 2 miles at the most."

 

      But about that time three burro colts came running up to meet their returning mothers, a soon after that the entire party arrived and looked  down where they had left, by truck, about 3 hours ago.    It was, indeed, a two-mile walk back, and it was almost totally level ground except for one 400 yard stretch of a slight incline.

 

The new paved highway to San Lorenzo was built where the donkeys had told them to build it.

(and yes, there really is a Mitlalchitepec  [I believe it means "Corn field full of (weeds) (wild flowers) of the mountain" in Nahuatl/Zapotec...in Oaxaca.])

 

     And that was one of many, many stories from Agustin Salinas that kept me spell-bound from age 0 - 6....a long, long time ago in a never never land on the Mexican border.  His stories all turned out to be true, or at least reasonable understandings of what he knew to be the truth.

 

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(Excerpted from email exchange with an OROG, who served multiple tours in Afghanistan in forward areas and who is something of a son/nephew/brother figure to El Gringo Viejo, and who was a chum  of EGV's daughter and a member of her graduating class in High School.  The original email was amended, editted, and smoothed out a bit, and made more accurate in some minor detail.

     We had been talking about things, and then the topic veered into horses [I think because he knows that my father was a "real live" horse cavalry trooper back in the late 1920s and early 1930s.]  So, I signed off this email to him with, " Thanks for your observations. Sometimes they bring back memories.")